Legend Animals
by Piper Lilly
Summary: It's 1000 years after the Four Fallen, and 500 years or more since the last real Spirit Animal. When a strange girl appears in Shyne Glory's dream, Shyne realizes that the only way to bring the power of Spirit Animals back is to travel to the Outlaying Territories - The most dangerous place in Erdas - and find out the mysterious secret of the Outlaying Territory's Royal Family.
1. Prologue

Everything was dark.

Shyne couldn't see anything as she walked through what seemed a dark nothingness. Her footfalls echoed, so she thought she might be in some sort of tunnel. An endless tunnel. An endless _dark_ tunnel.

 _Creepy._

She felt a if this dream should mean something - even though there was nothing _in_ the dream. Yet.

Then, suddenly a vivid light crashed through the end of the dark tunnel, and Shyne winced at the bright light. But the light didn't fade, so she inched closer to the end.

Maybe it wasn't even light! She gasped in horror as the light turned to flames. They burned everywhere, but there was nothing to burn. It was like a desert of nothingness had caught fire.

What should she do? Should she call for help? Her parents wouldn't be very happy if she woke them up. Maybe she shouldn't have come out here in the first pla-

"Oh no!" She cried out as the realization hit her. Where was the city of CandleFlame? Had it diasapeared into the fire? But what about Sienna? Her parents?

"Oh no." She whispered with horror. "No, no. This cannot be happening-" She paused to look furiously around her. "Mom! Dad! Sienna!" She screamed. "Somebody!"

Nothing. No one came out from the fire, miraculously alive. No Mom to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. No dad to ruffle her hair and call her Princess.

Nothing.

No one.

Suddenly, a thought struck her. Why wasn't she affected by the fire? Of course, she had only ever heard of fire from the Schoolbooks at GoldBlaze Academy. But the Headmaster wouldn't _really_ put fake pictures of people burning to a painful death in fires, would he?

Just then, something caught her eye.

"Wow," Shyne leaned towards the flickering flames, entranced. Admist the fire, a bird emerged, flickering gold and red and iridescent.

A phoenix. A Legendbird from, well, a legend.

It disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

"Hey, wait!" Shyne called after the Phoenix.

"It's her, it's really her!" A girl's voice cried.

Shyne tensed at the sound of the unfamiliar voice and slowly turned around.

A brown eyed girl with coffee colored skin and a beaming face was looking straight at her. She was perhaps a few years younger than the 14 year-old.

The girl smiled and clasped her hands together. "I knew it would happen eventually! You summoned a Phoenix!"

~ xXx ~

" _What_?!" Who are you? Where am I?!" Shyne cried, confused and angry. What was going on?

Now the girl looked confused. A blonde haired boy with emerald-green eyes blinked in surprise as he appeared next to Shyne.

The girl had a desperate look on her face as she said, "Tell her Conor! She summoned the Phoenix! She's going to save Erdas!"

Two more kids appeared beside them: A pretty dark-haired girl, and a tall brunette boy.

The new girl spoke. "She's living a thousand years in the future, Abeke. She's probably confused, and slightly annoyed, I know I would be-"

Then the brown-haired boy. "And also weirded out that she's standing in a burning nothingness chatting with people who are appearing out of nowhere."

'Abeke' looked worried. "You have summoned a Spirit Animal. The first one in 500 years!"

The kids began to fade away.

Abeke shouted to be heard. "Be careful! You have no idea what some people would do to get your Spirit Animal! Go to the Outla-"

They faded away completely, and so did Shyne's surroundings. Everything went dark.


	2. Flint and Sienna

"And so, Spirit Animals are only legends. Our scientists today have not found any clear evidence..." Shyne's history teacher, Professor Zayden, droned on and on about how Spirit Animals weren't real.

 _Or were they?_ Shyne looked out the castle's window.

She kept thinking about her strange dream last night.

 _The girl and her friends. Four of them. Strange tattoos on their hands and arms..._

 _"You summoned a Phoenix!" The girl had shouted. Hope radiating from her face._

 _"... She's living a thousand years in the future, Abeke,"_

A thousand years in the future. How did they know that? Were they from the past? Was that even possible?

 _Abeke._

That name sounded familiar... but why?

" _Miss_ Glory!" Professor Zayden glared at her over the rim of his large spectacles. "I hope that you are paying attention to the lesson and _not_ staring out the window, daydreaming." The entire class turned to stare at her, and Shyne blushed. Starr and Luna, the classes mean girls were whispering to each other, staring at Shyne.

"Hey, what are you all looking at?" A deep voice said, next to Shyne. Flint.

 _Oh._

Well, Flint to the rescue. When Sienna wasn't in her classes, Flint was. Unfortunately, Shyne had had a fleeting crush on him since she was 6, and her cheeks flushed even more.

The Professor's stare was icy. "Let's just return to the lesson. Now..." He continued his lecture, and Shyne turned to Flint, who was sitting next to her.

"Thanks," Shyne whispered to him, feeling shy. She avoided his gaze.

"No problem," He ruffled his messy blonde hair and flashed a smile. "Anytime."

 _How could he be so impossibly perfect?_

 _Argh. Focus._

The dream had been so specific ... it was so real. The burning nothingness. CandleFlame gone. A dark desert.

Shyne shuddered, then looked around to make sure no one saw.

But the worst thing wasn't even that.

It was something Abeke had said, right before she had disappeared.

 _"Go to the Outlaying Territories..."_

~ xXx ~

Shyne started walking back from the old stone academy, towards her parents' mansion. She kept a light smile on her face, but her fingers felt ice-cold.

The Outlaying Territories. The most dangerous kingdom in Erdas. And Abeke expected her to go there? For all she knew, it could've just been a crazy dream... and what about that Phoenix?

Shyne _wanted_ to have summoned the Phoenix, but it had disappeared. Do Spirit Animals always do that?

Oh well, no time to think anyways. Sienna was running towards her, and thinking before doing was her least favorite thing.

Sienna reached her, smiling. Her black hair was pulled into a messy side braid, and her dark brown eyes were bright.

"Shyne! I haven't seen you for _forever._ Forever being four hours of course." She threw her arms around her best friend. Sienna's smile turned into a smirk. "Sooo, I heard what happened in class today."

"Oh," Shyne tucked her blonde wavy hair behind her ear and flushed pink. "Um, I wasn't not focusing on Professor Zayden's lecture for _that_ long-"

"No, not that thing. Everybody ignores Zayden's boring talks-"

" _Professor_ Zayden."

"I mean your crush on Flint!" Sienna looked pleased with herself.

"Oh, that," Shyne said, trying to look nonchalant. "I mean, it's not that big of a deal,"

Sienna put her hands on her hips. "Of _course_ it's a big deal! He likes you, you like him, it's _perfect_! You've had a crush on him for like forever and you're telling me that _it's not a big deal_?! Shyne Arla Glory, I need to tell you what the definition of priorities is, _because you seriously do not know what that means_ ,"

Shyne started walking furiously towards her house to hide her smile. From the news and from Sienna's silliness. "Flint _likes me_?" She squeaked, finally letting her smile through.

"Well of course he does!" Sienna squinted her almond shaped eyes at Shyne. "How could you _not_ know that?! I mean, it was so obvious to _me_ , and the rest of the 14-15 year category classes, so it was pretty obvious. And when I say pretty obvious, I mean, like, really obvious. Like Spirit-Animals-aren't-real-obvious."

Shyne's happy feeling turned sour at the reminder of the strange dream. She turned to her best friend.

"Speaking of Spirit Animals ... Sienna, I had this crazy dream last night..."


	3. Library

"Here." The owner of Greenhaven Cloak Library, Erlana, **(Like the girl version of Erlan in the future! If you read Immortal Guardians)** plopped down a large, dusty stack of books, and took out a small notepad.

"These are all the documents we have on Spirit Animals, Legendbirds, Phoenixes, deserts, fire, strange dreams, and ," Erlana squinted at the notepad. " _How to tell if a boy likes you_?" She glanced at Shyne. "Shyne, this doesn't seem like something you would usually check out. Are you sure you asked-"

Sienna popped out from behind a stack of books, startling Shyne and Erlana. "Oh that one's from me to her. She _really_ needs to read that." She walked to Shyne.

"Alright." Erlana said. "Well, that seems to be it. If you need anything else, I'll be at the counter."

Shyne and Sienna waited for her to leave, and scanned the room.

Sienna turned to Shyne and folded her arms."Okay, so let me get this straight. You're saying that a person who summoned a _Spirit Animal_ -"

" _Four_ persons. I mean, people."

"Popped out of nowhere, in the middle of a burning nothingness, and told you that they we're from a thousand years ago, and you had summoned a Phoenix? _A Legendbird?_ "

"Yes, and the kids had these funny tattoos on their hands and arms. I caught a glimpse of one of the girl's arm and her tattoo looked like a _panda._ " Shyne finished.

Sienna sighed. "Well you're always doing these crazy things-"

Shyne glared at her. " _I'm_ the one doing crazy things? What about that time you exploded chemicals on purpose during Science Hour? And also, trying to find out information by reading a bunch of books isn't crazy."

"Science was always my favorite Hour," Sienna mused. "Well anyways, we should just get this over with." She picked up a book from the top of a stack.

"The History and Legends of Spirit Animals. Ugh. This thing is, like, a thousand pages," Sienna complained.

Shyne rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just get reading." She picked up a book titled _Great Beasts._ _Please have something useful._

~ xXx ~

(Time skip)

 _Five hours later..._

"Shyne, we've been reading for _forever_. And you know how I can't sit still for more than _30 seconds_ ," Sienna complained. Shyne sighed in exasperation.

"I know that were reading for a long time, but this dream means something. And we need more information." Shyne told her.

"Just because your dream was weird doesn't mean that Spirit Animals are real," Sienna countered. "My brother Blaise told me that he had a dream about him getting to eat a million cheeseburgers, and it didn't come true. Also, he said something about a guy named McBob. Wait, no, Mcdonald."

Shyne scrunched her nose up. "What's a _cheeseburger_?"

"I don't know. Something to do with cows and cheese," She responded. "Blech. Mcdonald. What a weird name."

"We haven't found anything useful yet, but we have two books left." One was titled _Why Spirit Animals aren't Real_ , and the other was... blank.

Sienna groaned. "See, there's nothing useful. Come on, let's go." She grabbed Shyne's hand and started dragging her to the door.

"Wait!" Shyne quickly grabbed the small book that was blank and tucked in her pocket. It might be useful later.

They both started toward the door, but Sienna stopped moving at a strange rustling sound.

"What's that?" Shyne asked.

"Probably nothing. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the cree-"

"The reason why you haven't find anything useful in the books that you've been reading for the past five hours," A hooded figure stepped into the candlelight of the empty library, and Shyne had to stifle a scream. "Is because you haven't been reading the right books."

The figure removed his hood.

"Oh my gosh." Sienna whispered.

 _It was Flint._


End file.
